[Solved] Find corrupt font causing crashes

[rbhoffmann2011]

Just an FYI on a crash I encountered and fixed regarding a corrupt font file.

I use LibreOffice 3.3.4 running under Kubuntu 11.10

I installed a large number of TrueType fonts (1000+) from an archive I had and then found LibreOffice Writer crashed while scrolling the list of fonts.

To solve the issue I restarted Writer and scrolled from the top of the list (very slowly) - noting the last font that would display in the list. I did the same thing from the bottom of the list and was able to narrow the the target corrupt font down to something in the Solid Edge... group of fonts. I knew that the font files all started with 'se' in this group since I know that Solid Edge is a drafting tool and that files like 'seiso...' and 'seansi...' had to do with ISO and ANSI drafting. In the list of fonts that started 'se*.ttf' I only saw one I recognized that might not be a Solid Edge font. Since I am not using SolidEdge on my Linux system (I use DraftSight instead) I removed the others (the 'se*.ttf') and reloaded the font cache with:

sudo fc-cache -f -v

Then I restarted LibreOffice Writer and scrolled the list of fonts again. No more crashes!

To be more selective I could have removed the fonts in question to another folder and then added them back one at a time. Since there were only about two dozen and I was not going to miss them as a selection, I removed all of the suspects...

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Thanks for the information. We have indeed some reports about problems when many fonts are installed. Since nobody had managed (or tried) to spot the real rot cause, we used to think that the problem was with the high number of fonts installed. Your post may help future users in the same situation!